MakeBelieve
by erbsen
Summary: He was always telling them to be men... but it was only real to those he hurt.Eric POV Jackcentric


**Disclaimer:** This is solely the property of William Golding. I own none of these characters. None.

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He was always telling us to be men. If Rodger was picking on us, or if we bumped our shins, we were to be men about it. Men didn't suck their thumbs or cry out for their mamas at night. A man knew how to build a fire and how to paint his _own_ face.

And it took a _real_ man to thrust a stick through a pig's belly without thinking twice.

To us, Jack was a real man. He was taller than us, stronger than us, and quicker than us. He knew all the big words we had ever heard adults use—maybe even more. Trapped in the palm of his hand, the hunting stick was right where it was meant to be.

Until the officers came.

They wanted to know "what the hell" we were doing. Sam and I thought that it was pretty obvious. We were a tribe on a mission, running down our smoked-out prey.

It was almost like the make-believe games we had played at school… except that the suffocating smoke and hot sand were very real.

We had talked a little about what it would feel like to shove our sticks into Ralph's belly. It didn't take long to decide that we would let the real man handle the job. We were still learning, after all. But… we thought we would be _men_ about just learning. We would watch the stick go into him with calm faces… We thought we might even applaud if the atmosphere was right.

Real men and their skills need to be appreciated, after all.

But when the officers came, we started to cry, and they took Jack by the ear and pulled him onto their ship. They were taller than him, stronger than him, and quicker than him. They knew all the big words—maybe even more—that Jack had ever used. Being dragged by the ear, our leader seemed to be right where he belonged.

They lined us up—separated Sam and I—so that they could inspect us and maybe figure out what to do with us. Ralph held Sam's hand for me and I was very grateful. Jack gave me a disgusted look when he saw that my tears had caused my paint to run down my face. He shook his fiery hair into his eyes and glared at the passing officers from behind it. The paint, eight layers thick, on his face made him look almost inhuman… but I could feel him shrink into himself every time an officer glared back.

One by one, we were pointed at and brought into a room. Sam went in before me, and I tried to go with him but they stopped me. A sob shook my shoulders, but Jack told me to stop being such a baby. For a moment, I was back on the island—the sun beating down on us was just as strong, anyway. I almost thought to obey him as I had done so many times before. My hands were stained with the blood of a helpless animal because of his orders.

But then the officers came and pointed to him, and he obeyed what they said. I remembered then that I didn't have to listen to him anymore.

Sam came out looking as dapper as a young lad can possibly look. His tan cheeks had been rubbed clean of our war paint; his brown hair was neatly trimmed and parted. I thought they were being silly when they pointed at me to join Jack. Sam and I never looked any different, and since Sam looked tidy… it only made sense that I was tidy as well.

I went with them anyway.

As they threw him into a basin of water, Jack made a noise that made me shudder—the same sound that came from the pigs before they died. He writhed and thrashed as though the water burned his skin. They threw me into a bath too and started to scrub madly at my skin. It hurt, but I thought I would bear with it. I _was_ dirtier than Sam, and I didn't like that.

Jack bit the man that tried to scrub at his paint. That earned him a smack that he hadn't been expecting; he whimpered a little, but the paint was removed and he bore the rest of the torture in silence—his pride was the only thing keeping his emotions in check.

With each inch taken off his hair--his prized possession--the fire in his eyes seemed to die a little. He opened and closed his fists, as if he missed the feel of a spear… or maybe he was beginning to forget.

That night, he slept like a body that has nothing weighing on its conscience. I sat on the bunk above him, staring at the ceiling and wondering when I would see Sam again. I could hear him crying, and I could hear Ralph whispering to him, and I had never been sorrier that we had planned to applaud Jack for killing him.

I wondered if Jack ever thought about Simon and Piggy… if, as he was sleeping, he ever felt bad that we had celebrated their deaths. I peered over the edge of my bed and looked down on him. The moon cast an eerie light over his freckled face—clean of paint and as relaxed as he had ever been.

The next morning, he called us all on deck. His green eyes were shining with excitement—he had never been on a real navy boat before.

"All right, men," he said, "starting today we're pirates. Rodger is Rodger the Ruthless, and I'm the Red-Handed. Maurice, you're our cabin boy and you're name is Doorknob. Henry is the peg-legged cook and Ralph and the twins are our captives."

I stayed behind and watched with Sam because he was feeling sick. Jack told him to be a man about it, but I told him to be a man and pick on someone his own size.

Once again, he and Rodger made Ralph the target of their antics. "Be a man and get up on that gaff, you yellow bastard!" they shouted at him. I'm sure they would have thrown him overboard if the officers hadn't stopped them.

I realized then, holding Sam's clammy, shaking hand, that as real as everything on the island had seemed to us—the warm blood of an animal washing over our bare bodies couldn't have possibly been imagined—it was all just a playground game to him.

All those times he had told us to be men were no different to him than ordering around his "crew" now.

We weren't men then… we were just babies.

And to him… it was all just make-believe.


End file.
